Political comedy is funny when the comedy is the primary goal and the politics is merely the superficial topic. Good comedy points out the foibles and imperfections of all humanity.

Political comedy is not funny when the politics are made primary and the comedy is secondary. In that case, it simply devolves to "people in that party suck! Hurr Hurr Hurr." Only empty-headed partisan hacks find that amusing.

likefunbutnot:It's very possible to make fun of leftists in a legitimately amusing fashion. Portlandia does a great job of that. Rush Limbaugh does not.

It's very easy to make fun of conservatives. I don't think the previous sentence requires any other elaboration.

Pretty much this. Political humor is supposed to be aimed at certain corrupt/over the top individuals on both sides. The problem with most conservative "comedy" is that it is aimed at anyone who identifies at all as a liberal. See any of your "FW:RE:RE:FW:FW:FW: LOL LIBERALS" emails from your grandmother.

In his fearless speech, Colbert absolutely eviscerated Bush while pretending to praise him. He was so brutal and uncompromising that even some folks who despise Bush were tempted to feel sorry for him. It's easy enough to make fun of the president from the safe remove of a television studio in Manhattan; it's a whole lot harder to ruthlessly lampoon the most powerful man in the world while he's sitting close enough to breathe down your neck.

I remember when I was watching that live on C-SPAN and I just could not believe that it was happening. I knew that Colbert was going to have some fun with him, but I didn't think he was going to be that brazen about it. And even though I think Colbert is hilarious and GWB was a dimwit, I think I did feel just a tiny bit sorry for him at that moment.

Actually, I'm still not completely sure that GWB realized just how bad Colbert was sticking it to him at the time. Maybe someone explained it to him the next day?

FloydA:Political comedy is funny when the comedy is the primary goal and the politics is merely the superficial topic. Good comedy points out the foibles and imperfections of all humanity.

Political comedy is not funny when the politics are made primary and the comedy is secondary. In that case, it simply devolves to "people in that party suck! Hurr Hurr Hurr." Only empty-headed partisan hacks find that amusing.

This is well put. I think that's why I don't like Colbert, but I love Stewart. Colbert always seems to be trying to take ideological jabs first and foremost.